Falls on worksites have increasingly come under scrutiny and various codes of practice and regulations have issued to make work at a height safer.
The installation of scaffolding and edge barriers provide a good solution but they take time and skill to erect which can make them impractical or simply too expensive for certain work. It is certainly not practical in many cases to install an emergency roof repair by erecting scaffolding first.
To provide a less permanent fall prevention system various mechanical work platform devices are available, and again these work well for the purpose they are designed for. Mechanical work platforms normally attach the worker to operating within the confines of the platform, and many lock the worker in place by restraint harnesses.
For larger buildings restraint or anchor points can be installed and a worker locks themselves to this anchor point and operates on the end of a cable. In some cases they may lock themselves to two separate spaced apart anchor points to reduce the likelihood of swinging into an obstacle if they fall. These solutions provide more freedom but, as the distance between the worker and the anchor point (s) increases, the cable may ride over objects. The cable riding over objects or surfaces may cause damage to the cable or jam up to prevent the worker moving. An overhead anchor point that moves a short distance along a rail can minimise the chances of the cable being damaged but to act as a fall preventer the movement is still limited to a short distance from the sliding anchor point. In some environments the anchor point may not easily slide along the rail and thus the movement can be restricted still further.
There are fall arresting devices that to allow a user to move around an extended area include a one piece boom which is pivotably attached to a structure and the connection point slides along the length of this boom. One risk with these devices is when a user falls the tether point can slide along the boom moving them further away from safety.
Identifying how or why a fall has occurred can be difficult and this can make reducing the chance of it reoccurring difficult.
It is an object of this invention to provide the user with a useful choice and where possible ameliorate one or more of the deficiencies highlighted above.
Any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification is not an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of the common general knowledge in the field.